I love my physical CDs for tactile reasons, the artwork, the kid in me, etc. And in a practical sense, they serve as another backup to your hard drives.

But if there is one tantalizing possibility of the digital age, it's the idea that online download stores could someday offer the whole history of recorded music. Nothing would be out of stock or out of print, and titles that don't sell well would never have to be deleted from the catalog. It's the ultimate filmscore-lust fantasy-- and it's possible.

But it takes time and money for record labels to create the download version of an album, and that's why so many (if not most) vintage soundtracks are not yet available as downloads.

Do you think we'll ever get there? Which way is the wind blowing for Golden Age and Silver Age soundtracks and vintage film music LPs? Will they all be online someday, or will many of them vanish, because those are the two choices in the digital age.

My belief is they will. Might not be the next two decades but with the heavy shift to online content and easier/faster accessibility all the scores you and I own will be offered on the internet. I do believe one day with one click you will be able to get the complete discography of one composer.

I still prefer physical media and hate it when exclusive content is placed on the download release rather than the CD... kinda defeats the purpose of still getting the CD.

P.S. Illegally, the majority of all scores are already available on the internet, sad but true. The online stores are slowly catching up though.

Of the scores written and recorded between 1930 and 1960, perhaps 15%.

Of the scores written and recorded between 1960 and 1985, perhaps 35%.

Of the scores written and recorded between 1985 and 2010, perhaps 60%, and dwindling in availability in succeeding years.

Post 2000..... ???

General Reason: Lack of Interest.

Of the people who like film scores today, the great majority really only appreciate those which relate to their own generation. As each generation dies off, the interest in the distant past becomes even more distant to the surviving generations.

The bulk of the older scores (Golden Age, and moving into Silver Age) are now considered archaic, poorly recorded, often dramatically inept, and unrelated to contemporary styles in filmmaking for most current listeners today (and tomorrow). Many genres of films for which scores were written are now outdated and old-fashioned to most viewers, listeners, collectors and that problem carries the scores along as well.

There will always be a few exceptions, of course, but those older exceptions will also become less interesting as time goes on.

I am now 73. When you are young you do not see this inexorable movement of history around you so well. It's only when you are much older---if you survive---that you tend to perceive much more clearly the changes in time, fashions, trends, styles.

You can test yourself easily right here and now:

How many of you follow and have great interest today in regularly hearing and purchasing the music of Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern, Dr. William Axt, Sigmund Romberg, David Mendoza, Rudolf Friml, Dr. William Axt, Hugo Riesenfeld, Rudolph Kopp, Herbert Stothart---all recognized musicians in the entertainment field?

How many of you faithfully follow and collect the works of Max Steiner, Victor Young, Alfred Newman, Hugo Friedhofer, Daniele Amfitheatrof---of a later generation?

How many of you follow and are regularly collecting the works of Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, John Williams, Jerry Fielding, Bernard Herrmann......of a still later generation?

My guess is that the numbers of interested parties increase with each of these questions going forward, but decrease going backward.

Finally.....since the process of making motion pictures and writing scores is a commercial business, and since selling those motion pictures on DVD or download, and scores on CD or download, is, to the owners and studios, a money-making process---how long do you think a studio will continue to spend money to preserve and protect these elements if they don't earn that money back.

Just as lesser films from the past are beginning to deteriorate and have less exposure, so will their scores.

Collect what you can collect---what you're interested in collecting---at this time of your life---and listen to it regularly.

The opportunity will not always be there in the future despite the rosy predictions for an infinite library shelved in the clouds.

Maybe or maybe not but will you be able to afford them? Digital downloads are fairly cheap right now. Wait 20 years and those scores are going to cost you $50 dollars per album to download.

I suspect as "The Cloud" grows the computer companies will make smaller and smaller hard drives so you won't be able to store all the music on your computer. (If they are smart they will phase out the external drives as well) So add $200 dollars a month for your Cloud Storage.

Edit: Actually as we know they want to phase out Digital Downloads all together like they do physical media.

Yeah I am being pessimistic, but digital downloads are already starting to cost more than a physical CD release in some instances.

ALL is the 3 letter word that is in question. Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't mean all do you? You do realize how many feature length films have been made since say 1930? Most of these films have some music score behind them and of course not being a snob, one would say, WHO IS TO SAY WHICH ONES ARE BETTER?Being a statistical freak all my life I have always seen how people like to shrink everything into their own little world and narrow their minds to believe this is all. Even though they are smart enough to know in the back of their heads[many anyway] that they are living a sought of lie. There are a large amount of product out there when it comes to our beloved music, and the future is bright for the future as we have seen an incredible increase of choice the past few decades, but on this issue and so many in life ALL is a word that does not exist.Just as an example where there are thousands and thousands, will I get a cd in the future of THE APE MAN-43-SOUNDTRACK BY EDWARD KAY, because I just love that main theme, it moves me in rhythm as much as any theme has. Or is it lost with so much of the other music in all those MONOGRAM films of that era?

Maybe or maybe not but will you be able to afford them? Digital downloads are fairly cheap right now. Wait 20 years and those scores are going to cost you $50 dollars per album to download.

I suspect as "The Cloud" grows the computer companies will make smaller and smaller hard drives so you won't be able to store all the music on your computer. (If they are smart they will phase out the external drives as well) So add $200 dollars a month for your Cloud Storage.

Edit: Actually as we know they want to phase out Digital Downloads all together like they do physical media.

Yeah I am being pessimistic, but digital downloads are already starting to cost more than a physical CD release in some instances.

Agree. As CDs no longer revenue source why not go back to full model. They will begin to start charging again for effort.

The rate limiter will be how easy to do and interest. What will be eliminated is enough interest to press CDs artwork whichhave in physical medium.

Even if all recorded music was somehow extant and digitized, what you may be forgetting is the legal element. Recordings (music, movies, TV shows) must be authorized for release by the copyright holder; we're already seeing how that can prove a hindrance in the "soft copy" age. Movies and TV shows have appeared and disappeared from Netflix, songs are available then unavailable from iTunes, etc.

This factor alone will likely keep all copyrighted works from being simultaneously available (even via multiple outlets). Thankfully, the license doesn't expire on a CD or DVD.

In the future, computers will be able to completely replace musicians, so recording a score is going to be very cheap. Some people will then start restoring / re-recording and sharing (hopely for free) obscure, lost and mono scores, some with the help of computer program tools that will analyze and match the original performance (if any) from the mono source or the surviving audio tracks in the movie. So, yes, if humanity hasn't been replaced by a buch of apes, all scores will be available someday. Just wait 50/100 years.

While that scenario sounds possibly feasible. what one can do and will do in this world is another story. We know modern technology is and will offer incredible new ways of serving our needs, but then there is the humans themselves and the actions they take with what they have before them to use. That factor is why there are millions of things to make this world better we don't do today and why the world is the way it is today, Like many things it looks great on paper however now the reality.

Even if all recorded music was somehow extant and digitized, what you may be forgetting is the legal element. Recordings (music, movies, TV shows) must be authorized for release by the copyright holder; we're already seeing how that can prove a hindrance in the "soft copy" age. Movies and TV shows have appeared and disappeared from Netflix, songs are available then unavailable from iTunes, etc.

Exactly. Artists and copyright holders are still trying to figure out how they will be properly compensated for all this. In all cases I know of, film and television show residuals are paid out every time a new release window is purchased by Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, or the like. If Hulu buys your show for two years, you get a payment upfront (not a lot, as it is), and if enough people watch, Hulu will want to renew in two years and you'll get another payment. if not, or if the owner thinks he can get more elsewhere, it will disappear.

Also, it doesn't pay for any of these services to use server space on something that virtually nobody is interested in.

Maybe or maybe not but will you be able to afford them? Digital downloads are fairly cheap right now. Wait 20 years and those scores are going to cost you $50 dollars per album to download.

I suspect as "The Cloud" grows the computer companies will make smaller and smaller hard drives so you won't be able to store all the music on your computer. (If they are smart they will phase out the external drives as well) So add $200 dollars a month for your Cloud Storage.

Edit: Actually as we know they want to phase out Digital Downloads all together like they do physical media.

Solium, if you honestly believe hard drives are going to get smaller, your pessimism is clouding (pardon the expression) your judgement. And if they outlaw external drives, only outlaws will have external drives. Except, of course, that will never happen.

"They" would charge you $50 for an album right now if they thought people would pay it. Of course, they wouldn't, and so they don't. There are economic principles at work here. Just because you believe the powers that be to be evil and scheming doesn't mean that it will ever make financial sense for a label to charge that kind of money (even in 2033 dollars). The phrase "charge what the market will bear" apparently dates back to ancient Greece. I don't see how that's going to change in twenty years.

I don't know who the "they" are you believe wants to phase out digital downloads, and physical media. But let me assure you, the demise (such as it is) of the CD and the DVD was driven by consumers. Just as the rise of cloud-based services is. These things may not serve collectors, but don't confuse collectors (a tiny market) with consumers (everybody). There isn't a music executive alive who doesn't yearn for the heyday of CDs.

@ SchiffyM- Your really think the customer, not the corporations are shaping how we buy things and what sort of ownership and format it will be in?

Yes, HD's will get smaller because they want everyone using The Cloud. They are grooming everyone with the "free" Cloud service. Which in time will be like a cable bill because you won't have enough "free" space to hold all your media. So everyone will get suckered into "buying" more storage space.

Yes digital downloads will go the way of the dinosaur (like the physical format) once everyone is forced into streaming. Companies want to prevent consumers from accessing their media other than thru a streaming type mechanism. (I assume to finally stop piracy) I predict iTunes will eventually go streaming only as well. It's also a cash cow for them. Every time one wants to rewatch something you either have to pay on demand, or keep up with your monthly streaming service. Right now I can just put a DVD into my player. I'm not charged every time I play a movie I have in my possession.

Apple took the optical drive out of their computers. Yeah, you can get an Apple external optical drive but that's an extra $90 bucks. Is that what I as the consumer dictated to Apple? Make me spend more for less and buy extra add-ons at an extra expense? Or they just hoping I say, what the hell, I'll buy into the Cloud service?

I don't think my comments are paranoia at all, but based on how the corporations are molding the entertainment apparatus.

I agree companies sometimes move regardless of what consumers want, solium, but on the whole we really have more choice now than ever before. We have yet to see a single new media method fully replace an old one: apps haven't replaced print magazines, online news hasn't replaced newspapers, downloads haven't replaced CDs, etc. Heck, the studios can't even get everyone from DVD to Blu-ray.

Yes, Apple has now mostly done away with optical drives (not even the new Mac Pro will have one), but this has been going on for a few years now. A friend predicted at the time all machines would give them up once Apple started, but a quick look at PCs (desktops, laptops) at different price ranges reveal optical drives are still built in. Microsoft itself was just humbled by being forced to release Windows 8.1.

While what you're suggesting is technically conceivable, what we're actually seeing is more choice rather than less. The reason is the dollar, which means the consumer still rules.

Yes there are a few things where one may be stuck in the corner and have no choice in life. But by far most things in this world when it comes to a product you do have a choice. It is the customer that rules the game. If a person is not happy with something then they don't buy it, period.When it comes to things in the entertainment industry where convenience overrules necessity this is even more the case. What was that great line from Samuel ARKOFF. Some people don't always know what they want, but they nearly always know what they don't want. So if most people really don't want a product it won't make it. The point is something is successful because the public does want it.Now do many people have poor taste?Now that could be, but that is another issue.The point is people get what they want.

Solium - What you talk about is true but only for certain things like tablets and smartphones currently. In future years, even those will mostly be able to have expandable storage. Already you can get 64 gigs of space in a single microSD card. In 10 years, you will have 1TB or close to it in that size of a card. Even if somehow most of the companies shrink access to hard drives, a few will make available computers that are expandable because that is what people want.

Sure companies are pushing you towards streaming but already I can set up my own streaming service from a hard drive attached to my router. This sort of self-hosted streaming service will likely become the mainstream way of doing things in the future at least for collectors who have huge amounts of music. The personal media player is dying but already I can stream pretty much my entire collection in mp3s by connecting to a web site from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

As to the main question, are we going to see everything that has been released once in some form or another (been available on CD or Vinyl commercially) at some point made available for digital download? Most likely. If I was a total optimist, I would suggest that the whole reason they are licensing all the CDs right now is so that they can clean up the music for digital downloads. We are already seeing this in the form of music on Varese's Catalogs showing up on HDtracks.

I think over time, the cost of storing all these older releases will be so low that it will make sense for them to have everything available. Are there tons of younger generation who are interested in the older scores? not so much perhaps. I do think that enough of the younger generation who desires quality writing will eventually want to seek out the Golden Age and Silver Age stuff just like most people tend to seek out Classical works. Stuff from 30's - 40's not so much, but I think enough of the good 50s-80s works that have already been released should be available digitally eventually.